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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23905171">Compassion</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reysagents/pseuds/Reysagents'>Reysagents</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Badass Rey, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Ben Solo is a Mess, Death Star, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Near Death Experiences, Rey Needs A Hug, Reylo - Freeform, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Trailer, Written Pre-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 18:22:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,178</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23905171</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reysagents/pseuds/Reysagents</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>This is my take on what could have happened during the Death Star fight in TROS! Is it angsty? Yes. Does it hurt? Yes. Is it soft? Yes. But does it make me feel a lot better about TROS? Also, yes.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kylo Ren &amp; Rey, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey &amp; Ben Solo, Rey &amp; Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>59</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Compassion</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Everything was deafening- excruciatingly so. All around Rey, whitecapped waves crashed against each other sending freezing saltwater spray everywhere, chilling her to the bone. This was more water than she’d ever seen in her life, even more than on Ahch-To. The sheer force of everything was overwhelming. It was all so loud. Her head hurt. Thunder cracked across the sky, allowing a sharp ring to make its way into her ears, reverberating inside her skull. It sounded like a high speed freighter was on either side of her, so close she could feel the phantom engines in her chest. All of that; all of the crashing and cracking and the sound of the waves was nothing compared to the sound of her own heartbeat. </p>
<p>Her chest was heaving and her hair clung to her face in disarray. Loose strands fell over her eyes. She would have tried to brush them out of the way, but any attempt would be futile. The water was relentless; she was soaked to the bone. Her teeth chattered and her robes clung to her body. She shivered. Her arms and legs ached, but still, she stood her ground. </p>
<p>She knew he was here, and that simple fact instilled an intense ferocity in her. Before she could see Kylo, she felt his presence. A disturbance in the Force. Anger boiled in her stomach. </p>
<p>Righteous anger. </p>
<p>Rey gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. She would finish this. She closed her eyes and let the water wash over her. She breathed in deeply, letting the sounds of the thundering ocean pound into her head. Her eyes were only closed for a moment, but when she opened them she saw a flash of red glowing through the mist. Kylo’s saber. Quickly after, his dark robes followed suit, then the rest of him came into view. He stared at her, his eyes burning into her soul brighter than the red cross he wielded in his leather clad hand. Rey clenched her jaw so hard the thought her teeth might crack. Slowly, she reached her hand down to the lightsaber at her side. She lifted it out of it’s spot on her belt without breaking eye contact with him. This was the first time she’d seen Kylo- really seen him- in a whole year or more. During the many months they’d been apart, they’d managed to connect through the Force a few times, but only when Rey’s guard was down.</p>
<p>It usually happened in dreams.</p>
<p>Or nightmares.</p>
<p> It was unsettling. </p>
<p>Seeing him in person though, not through a twisted vision that followed her everywhere, was very different. His eyes piercing into hers brought back every strange memory she’d ever had with him. She had trouble focusing as a thousand thoughts tumbled through her head.</p>
<p>----</p>
<p>The forest, where she’d scarred him forever. When she called him a monster. She could still feel the heat of his saber against her neck. Her heart pounded inside of her chest.</p>
<p>The slaughter of his own father, which had in a way, become hers too. She watched helplessly, a scream stuck in the back of her throat.</p>
<p>Those nights on Ahch-To.</p>
<p>When he confided in her about what happened with Luke. She recalled a desperate ache in her chest that night as she tried to sleep. She tried not to cry.</p>
<p>The night on the island when she found her way into the mirror cave so long ago. When she bore her soul to him without thought of consequence. </p>
<p>When he told her she wasn’t alone. </p>
<p>She could still feel the electric charge of his hand against hers. She had seen his future, or so she thought. That was the first time in her life she ever recalled having hope; real, genuine hope for another person.</p>
<p>Snoke’s throne room; back to back. When he’d killed his master for her. When he’d spared her life for no reason other than he could. </p>
<p>That was the last time she could ever remember having hope; real, genuine hope for another person.</p>
<p>Then perhaps the most painful thing; his outstretched hand, begging her to join him. She felt a phantom tear race down her face, or perhaps it was real, at the recollection of the memory. She had never been so wrong. It haunted her every time she closed her eyes.</p>
<p>He haunted her.</p>
<p>Real, genuine hope for another person haunted her.</p>
<p>-----</p>
<p>All of those memories flashed across her mind in an instant, filling her with an emotion she wasn’t sure existed. It wasn’t rage, not exactly. She wanted to put an end to all of this in a way that mattered. It was a feeling of pushed-down anguish she had as she ignited her saber and raised it behind her shoulder, prepared to swing if given the chance. She’d repressed those feelings for far too long, and it pained her. This was a special kind of longing that she felt; a sort of enraged empathy that invaded her soul as he drew nearer to her. He moved his shoulder in a circle, his saber moving towards the ground as if he was going to plunge it into the metal, but stopping just in time. He was rearing to strike at her. She stood her ground as Kylo came at her. When he was within swinging distance she could barely hear her name tumble out of his mouth. </p>
<p>“Rey-” </p>
<p>She cut him off with a battle cry. How dare he utter her name. That was enough for her to twirl her saber around her back, building up enough force to swing at him. He met her blade with a loud crash as purple sparks crackled between their faces. </p>
<p>“Have you come to strike me down?” he growled through gritted teeth. “To try and have me atone for my sins?” he yelled. “To bring me back to the light!”</p>
<p>Anger boiled in her chest. He had no right to ask her such ridiculous questions that he knew she didn’t have the answer to. “So you finally admit you have sins to atone for?” She yelled back in between swings at him. “I’m done trying to help you! I don’t need to hear your pathetic excuses anymore! I’m here to end this!”</p>
<p>The fighting grew more intense with each passing moment. Rey growled and swung her saber down with all her might into Kylo’s crossguard before he twisted it and caught her hilt, forcing her saber up and away from her, almost out of her hand. She held fast to the saber.</p>
<p> “It doesn’t have to be like this!” he yelled over the sound of the water. “This all could have been so easy!” Rey’s grip tightened on the hilt of her weapon and she took a step back, Kylo following suit. She didn’t like what he was insinuating.</p>
<p> “With you, nothing is ever easy! I gave you your chance, but you just used it to stab me in the back!” Both of her hands grasped the body of the saber so hard her knuckles turned white. The salt spray from the water made her hands slick. “I was wrong to have ever believed you would turn back! You are a monster!” Her heart was about to pound out of her chest. He forced his saber back, close to her sternum.</p>
<p>“Oh there’s that word again!” He yelled. “A bold claim for a hypocrite!” She blocked his attack and met his blade once more, his eyes going red and blue in the light of the sparks. She stared at him in anger and confusion. He pressed down on her blade until the saber was at her chest, the heat radiating onto her exposed skin. “How dare you, scavenger,” he said. She scrunched her nose and held the beam as far away from her as she could. He continued, “you expect me to join you on a whim and then shame me for not doing the same.” He studied her face in the gleaming light of his saber. “You don’t understand any of the forces at play here! This isn’t about the Resistance or the First Order, or the Sith and the Jedi-” He pressed closer into her, his lip turned upwards in an angry snarl “This is between you and me!”</p>
<p>“There’s nothing to discuss!” Rey yelled back. She let out a battle cry before forcing her saber upwards and almost into him. She barely missed his neck with the jab. “You’ve missed your chance!” she screamed, fire in her eyes. “It’s a shame that I was almost beginning to care about you!” </p>
<p>“God, why are you so stubborn, Rey!” He yelled before backing away from her a few paces. He let his saber hang down at his side. He studied her for a moment before she charged at him once more, twisting her body all the way around to build up the strength she needed to counter him. Kylo met her with equal force at the crest of her swing, stopping her from bringing her searing beam down on him. “Please just hear me out!” Kylo yelled. “You don’t understand!” There was more pain in his voice than anger. </p>
<p>Something felt off about this exchange to Rey as she continued to bring her blade upon him. He wasn’t trying to attack her, not yet anyway. All of his moves had been defensive as if trying to disarm, not harm her. He was acting as if he didn’t care a thing about the legacy saber. Was this even about the saber? The Resistance? She didn’t know anymore. She swung at him once more, testing her theory. From above she took the saber in both hands and drove it straight down from above her head. He backed up and her beam hit the ground, sending sparks flying and creating a thin crevice in the metal below their feet. Embers clung to the gnarled ingot as Rey stumbled backwards from the sheer force of the impact. She regained her balance quickly before drawing her saber up to her shoulder once more. Confusion and emotion clouded her better judgement as she ran at Kylo. She was just about to swing at him with aim to end his life when he dropped his saber to the ground and threw his hands up in front of his face, guarding himself from her blow. </p>
<p>He closed his eyes, ready for the worst, but stopped short when the searing pain didn’t come. Instead, all he felt was a thud. She hit him square in the chest with her body and they toppled to the ground, soaking wet in the downpour. Rey let out a scream as she tumbled to the ground on top of him, saber in hand, trying not to get herself killed by falling on her own weapon. Kylo groaned with the wind knocked out of him; Rey because the hilt of Kylo’s still un-ignited saber on his belt was pressing into her ribcage. Rey only let herself recover for a moment before she scrambled off of him and straddled his chest. One hand pressed him harder into the ground, with the other she held the hilt of her saber directly at his chest, ready to ignite it and end this fight on her terms. She was breathing so hard she could barely speak. She wondered if he could feel her turmoil. She just stared down at him. She wanted to kill him. She wanted to want to kill him, but somehow she couldn’t. Kylo’s eyes opened and bore into her soul. She was so close she could almost make out the reflection of herself in his pupils. </p>
<p>“Do it,” he whispered without breaking eye contact. Waves crashed with thunderous applause and the water splashed against them with a new intensity. Rey’s hair clung to her face as she watched him from her vantage point. Her eyes softened the slightest bit. </p>
<p>She couldn’t do it. </p>
<p>She cursed herself.</p>
<p>Killing him would make her no better than he. She had wanted him to die for so long. Those months after the battle of Crait were hard for Rey. It was hard for her to ever feel anything. Despite being surrounded by friends and people who hailed her as a hero, she always felt empty. The bond followed her everywhere. Her failure followed her everywhere and it hurt. Every night she had dreams, or nightmares, about him. About the throne room, about Snoke, about Ben Solo. Everything she did, he was somehow a part of. She hated every minute of it. She hated how he invaded her mind. She hated how he was always there. She hated how sometimes it comforted her. She was so intensely alone.She couldn’t speak about it to anyone in the Resistance or she would be discarded; thrown away as a First Order sympathizer. She knew even her own friends wouldn’t believe her when she told them her intentions were pure. She had considered telling Leia, but eventually brushed that thought aside as well. She decided that she couldn’t find it in her heart to disappoint the only motherly figure she had ever had. She had let everyone down. It split her spirit to the bone. She shouldn’t feel these complex things for him. On one hand, she had dreams about driving her weapon into his heart and leaving him for dead. On the other hand, she would cry herself to sleep at the thought that she had lost him forever. She could have saved him and it was slowly destroying her from the inside out. She didn’t want to feel that. Deep down she had always hoped someone else would kill him. She didn’t really want it to be her, although that’s what everyone expected from her; the last Jedi. </p>
<p>Kylo watched Rey’s face change in the dim light of the finished day. He watched as her eyes filled with tears.</p>
<p>Tears of frustration and of disappointment.</p>
<p>“Do it,” Kylo said, looking down the hilt of her saber guard. He almost smiled; even with a saber pointed at his chest and with every part of him drenched in saltwater. With a small nod of his head and in a soft whisper, he gave her a quiet sign of approval. “Do it,” He said again. He paused for a beat before continuing.</p>
<p>“Please.” </p>
<p>Rey’s eyes filled with tears and she hooked her saber back onto her leather belt. She looked at him, her salty tears mixed with the ocean spray so neither of them could tell which was which. She was still above him, her hips poised above his stomach. She pushed her wet hair off of her face and wiped her eyes.</p>
<p>“You know I can’t.”</p>
<p>Kylo just stared at her. “What?”</p>
<p>“YOU KNOW I CAN’T,” She yelled, and she brought her fists down onto his sternum. Kylo groaned and she pounded her fists harder and harder into his chest over and over again as she cried out at the top of her lungs, “I WANT TO KILL YOU! I want to do it, but I CAN’T! What the Hell is wrong with me!” She wanted to rip her hair out in frustration.</p>
<p>“Rey-” Kylo started between gasps for air from the beating.</p>
<p>“I SAID DON’T SAY MY NAME!” She screamed. She grabbed her weapon at her side, ignited it, and smashed the tip of it into the ground so hard that the metal groaned beneath them. She screamed at the top of her lungs, a war cry to an empty regime. She dropped the saber on the ground only a second later, letting it tumble across the metal, away from her. She didn’t want to touch it anymore; she had had enough. She tore herself off of Kylo’s chest, sat up, and kneeled down on the ground, letting the water wash over her in sheets. “I can’t do this anymore!” She brought her knees to her chest and buried her face in the soaked fabric of her trousers.<br/> Kylo laid still for a moment, wondering if maybe he could disappear. By a simple miracle, he was alive. He sat up slowly and watched Rey sob into herself. In his head he knew to not dare touch her, but something inside told him that he should, so he angled his body to where he was sitting next to her. He wondered if she even noticed his presence. He could barely think straight with the water coming from every side of him. He was freezing, and he knew she was too; she was wearing less clothing than he was. Her arms were exposed despite her wraps and the fabric was far too thin for this severe weather. He watched her weep into herself and did the only thing he felt was right. The only thing that he could do.</p>
<p>He sat with her.</p>
<p>“Please,” Rey said. She removed her head from her knees and looked up at him. Tears streaked her already soaked face and her hair hung in loose strands around her head. Her eyes were red rimmed. She quickly wiped her face with the back of her hand, trying to hide the evidence. “Don’t make this harder for me.” </p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“Please, just-” she couldn’t help it, she began to cry again. Quickly, she squeezed her eyes shut to stop the stinging. “-I can’t be around you.”</p>
<p>“Rey, I’m sorry but I don’t understand-”</p>
<p>“-I know,” She cut him off. “You never understand, Ben!” Kylo winced at his birth name. No matter how much she used it, he would never get used to the sound it made tumbling from between her lips. It had never seemed to fit quite right. “You don’t understand that you hurt me. All the time you do. You don’t even realize it.” A tear fell from her lashed and cut a line down her cheek. “Or maybe you do.” Kylo watched her intensely, his heart breaking in half.</p>
<p>His heart filled with guilt.</p>
<p>“I’m not trying to hurt you-” </p>
<p>“I know,” she sighed, “but you do anyway. It’s the stupid bond it’s this stupid connection. I hate it, I hate it, I HATE IT!” She pounded her fist on the ground and let out a groan laced with a sob. “It HURTS! You follow me around like a shadow! I’m always haunted by my failure!”</p>
<p>“What failure-”</p>
<p>“YOU!” Rey screamed. She grabbed at the fabric around his neck and pulled. “YOU ARE MY FAILURE!” She screamed, before releasing him and putting her head in her hands. “I tried so hard.” </p>
<p>Kylo reeled back and caught himself. “It’s not your fault,” He said solemnly.</p>
<p>She wiped her eyes and looked at him, the anger dissipating to reveal sorrow in her heart. “No, it’s not, but I can’t help but feel like it is.” He watched her as she turned to face him, her muscles relaxing the slightest bit. “I’ve outlived my usefulness to the Resistance. My only job was to help stop you.” She looked up at him. “I’ve disappointed Master Skywalker, I’ve disappointed Leia-” Ben winced at his mother’s name. “-And I’ve disappointed the entire Resistance, and it’s all because I-” she paused, taking a breath to stop the tremble she felt blossoming in her chest. “-Because I was supposed to kill you.”</p>
<p>“Then why didn’t you?” He asked. He knew that wasn’t the real problem. There was something more. This wasn’t about the Resistance, this was something deeper. </p>
<p>“Because I’m a coward.” she replied, disgusted with herself. “I’m no Jedi. I’m a fake. I’m a fool who can’t find the balance between the Light and the Dark and I have compassion for you.” Ben’s eyes snapped up to hers, he clung to her every word. “We’re on two sides of an intergalactic war and somehow-” </p>
<p>He cut her off. ”-Somehow I understand you better than you understand yourself.” She drew her brows together, confused. “I feel it too.” Ben continued, “If fighting tells a person’s true nature then no one knows you better than I do. You wanted to save my soul.” </p>
<p>“Yes. I can feel the conflict in you. I have for years.”</p>
<p>“I know.” </p>
<p>“It’s hard.”</p>
<p>“I know.” He reinforced. </p>
<p>“I just don’t understand,” Rey said. “Why the First Order, why Snoke, why all of the slaughter and pain and death? Why do you do it? Why not turn away?”</p>
<p>Ben looked down at his feet and propped his elbows on his knees, running a hand through his drenched hair. “Because the First Order is the only thing I have left.” He paused, lost in thought. “Everyone in my life has abandoned me.” He raised his eyes to meet hers. “Except for you.” </p>
<p>“Then why didn’t you come to me?” Rey asked, sidling up to him. Their shoulders almost touched now. “All you seem to want to do is push me away!” </p>
<p>“I could say the same about you,” Ben interrupted. “We’re stuck in this violent cycle! You say you want me to come to you, but then get upset when I do! I can’t win, Rey! I don’t know what you want from me! Have you forgotten that this bond affects me too? You haunt my dreams and my waking. Everyday I feel a crushing disappointment from Luke, my father, and my mother, and now, I feel it from you, too.”</p>
<p>Rey’s heart ached at the mention of Han Solo. “I still believe there’s a good person in you! There’s something more to all of this that I can’t quite fathom.” She took a deep breath. “Everything is confusing and I don’t want to fight anymore, but how can we not. I just want this to be over!”</p>
<p>“Rey, I don’t want to fight you.” </p>
<p>“You don’t?” She asked, disbelief revealing itself in her tone.</p>
<p>“Of course not,” He said. “I just want you to listen. Deep down we want the same thing.”</p>
<p>“Acceptance.” </p>
<p>He nodded his head slowly. “You don’t want to admit that we’re the same. Darkness rises-”</p>
<p>“-And light to meet it.” </p>
<p>“It’s up to us to figure out who is who.”</p>
<p>No one spoke. The silence hung in the air like a dark cloud. What else was there to say? Rey didn’t want to admit it. She didn’t want to think about the fact that they were two sides of the same coin. Deep down she knew that he was right. There was darkness in her just as much as there was light in him. A Dyad in the Force.</p>
<p>It hurt her heart.</p>
<p>He hurt her heart.</p>
<p>Again, and without warning, she felt tears pool in her eyes. This was all too much. Still, no one said anything. She squeezed her eyes shut to stop the stinging. Eventually, unable to hide it anymore she hid her face in her hands and began to weep. Ben looked over at Rey; she was soaking wet, and her shoulders shook, wracking her body with sobs. She had said it herself, she felt compassion for him. Her intentions were pure. She just wanted what was best for him, and he realized long ago that he couldn’t give that to her. </p>
<p>He would always let her down. </p>
<p>Guilt flooded his body. He wasn’t what she wanted him to be. He could tell it tore her up from the inside out. It tore him up, too. It had for years.</p>
<p>So without a word and before he could talk himself out of it, he did the only thing he felt he could do. He drew her into himself. With one arm he gripped her shoulder and with the other he cradled her head to his chest. This only made Rey sob harder. She pulled her knees in to be closer to him and cried into the fabric of his cowl. The tension she had been holding in her body for more than a year was finally beginning to dissipate. </p>
<p>She’d never been held before. Never comforted. She found his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it so tight that she thought her fingers would break. He squeezed back and put his chin on top of her head, smoothing his hand over her hair. He would be lying if he had said he didn't also shed a tear. There was nothing to say. Maybe they didn’t need words. He was her weakness, and she was his. Both were each other’s failures, but not anymore. In that moment, in that embrace, they both realized that maybe it wasn’t about sides, it wasn't about the war. For the first time, they realized that the other person was not a battle to be won or a pawn to be turned. For a moment, it was about compassion. </p>
<p>They both hurt each other.</p>
<p>They both hurt for each other. </p>
<p>They always would.</p>
<p>It wasn’t about the Resistance.</p>
<p>It wasn’t about the First Order.</p>
<p>It wasn’t about the Light or the Dark; the Sith or the Jedi.</p>
<p>It wasn’t about sides.</p>
<p>It was about the two of them together, if just for a moment. </p>
<p>It was about compassion.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you to everyone reading this! I am so thankful for your support!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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